


into the silences between human beings

by That_Ghost_Kristoff, TheElusiveBadger



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Canon Jewish Character, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, F/F, F/M, Hillel, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Murder Mystery, Steve is a Righteous Pigeon, Thor Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 01:49:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5229293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_Ghost_Kristoff/pseuds/That_Ghost_Kristoff, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheElusiveBadger/pseuds/TheElusiveBadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's an ordinary Friday night in early September when the Xavier siblings and their friends stumble across Professor Erskine's body sprawled under the campus shrubbery. Now everyone's a suspect or a witness, and all Detective Carter wants is to solve this mystery in time for a flight home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

The room’s dark when Abraham enters, the thin streams of sunshine entering through the sides of the linen curtains not providing enough light to see more than outlines and shadows. It doesn’t matter much; he knows his office and lab better than he knows his home, and could navigate it with no light at all if he were forced. When he’s forced.

As the door shuts behind him, it locks automatically, the noise grating loud against the stillness. From next door in the adjuncts’ office, low music plays, and above that two voices converse with their words muffled by the thickness of the wall. His former TA has a desk there, if a drawer in the desk of a literature professor could be considered a desk of his own. If this all goes badly, then he or his replacement, may be hurt, too. For his sake, for Charles’, and for everyone’s, Abraham fumbles with hurried hands for the key to open his cabinet.

It springs open, stuffed to the brink, only kept shut by the locking mechanism and refusing to remain so. Loud enough to hear now that Erskine is close to the wall, Howard Stark, never one for being quiet, says audibly, “I even had a kid _ask_ me to be her adviser.”

A voice as German as Erskine’s own answers, “I doubt they were requesting out of respect for academic opinion, Stark.”

Abraham counts as he rifles through the files he never thought he’d have to hide, and stops at eleven. Next door, Howard insists his students, most of them actually Abraham’s students, appreciate his academic integrity. The file is light in Abraham’s hands when he lifts it delicately, afraid to let the few sheets of paper slip out. There isn’t much in here, because he never wanted there to be. Until he finalized the formula, he tore up what he had at each new stage to keep anyone from following him, even when he thought no one would.

“Academia’s elitist by nature,” the German voice is saying as Abraham backs away, but anything else he says is lost again, words more muffled the further away he is.

As Abraham reaches out to touch the door handle, the light signalling the lock flickers green. His heart skips a beat, sweat pools into his palms, but he forces the burst of fear down and takes back one step, two, and then a third to fit himself between the file cabinet and the wall. In the other room, Howard’s saying, “Advisees are, I don’t know, a symbol of _status_ , you know?” as the only door in or out pushes open.

Whatever the German did or didn’t know, Abraham never heard. The light shines from the hallway for only a moment before it’s blocked, and a man’s shadow is cast across the far wall. Then the door shuts, and the light is gone. Abraham glances around, but his own shadow stays pooled around his feet, inconspicuous. The newcomer’s breathing is soft but entirely too close, sounding louder than it really should. Every footstep is a shuffle, an attempt at stealth failed by the shifting fabric of his coat. It’s something polyester, like a rain jacket, or, more logically, a lab coat.

For a few moments, Abraham can hear rustling noises as the man searches around the lab, shuffling through drawers and papers left out. He hears a smack as the stranger’s fist connects with one of the lab desks, rattling the equipment on the desk. Another few seconds pass, and then the back closet opens.

Seeing his opportunity, Abraham makes a low dash for the door, using his desk as a cover. It almost seems as though he’ll manage to escape, for a moment, until his knee cracks with a sound as though it shattered.

He freezes, too terrified to twitch, and the man by the closet turns.

 

 

This wasn’t supposed to be Peggy’s mission. She’s supposed to be in London right now with her parents, as she is every September, sipping tea with her mother as they plan her father’s sixtieth birthday. _Every_ year since she first joined the force she’s had this vacation, and _every_ year she’s made it home in time for a nice, home-cooked supper before a night’s rest in her childhood bedroom. After five years, it’s written into her contract, however unofficially—yet because it’s unofficial, it’s doubtful she’ll even be paid overtime.

With her hands on her hips and her hair more disheveled than it ever has been in her life, she creates the perfect picture of righteous indignation as she stares down her first witness. His name is Sam Wilson, and he’s twenty-three, according to the file in front of her, a veteran gone from foxholes to college classrooms with a body and gaze to reflect it. “Mr. Wilson,” she says, meeting his eyes as he looks up at her with a stoic expression and rigid posture, “tell me what you saw today.”

He doesn’t cross his arms, or make any move to lean back against the chair, as most men do in this situation. “Not much,” he says, shoulders still. “Got there after the body fell.”

Though he’s clearly trying to hide it, his voice is still laced with a Harlem accent, one of the more recognizable ones from her year long stint in the NYPD right out of college. Peggy doesn’t have time for this sort of act when, if she finishes this quick enough, she may still make it to England. “You’re not a suspect, Mr. Wilson,” she says, and pulls back the chair before sliding into it and folding her arms across the table. It’s been several hours now since the group of students were first brought in, all witnesses and none suspects. “I want to get to the bottom of this, and I need what help I can get. This requires details.”

“I’d love to help you, ma’am,” he says, as if she were her mother, “but I honestly don’t know that much. Never had Professor Erskine myself. He was bio, the advanced kind. I’m still taking my core classes.”

“Has anyone else with you taken him?” she asks, reminding herself that despite his age, Sam Wilson has fewer credits than the rest of the mob waiting behind the glass with Jack and Jarvis. “There’s remarkably little about him on file.”

More openly than Peggy expected, Mr. Wilson answers, “Well, any professor in the School of Sciences probably knows him. Charles knows him best out of all of us, and Bucky’s had him as a professor.”

Peggy nods shortly, and glances down again to Mr. Wilson’s incredibly detailed file. “You’re a soldier,” she says bluntly. “You know how to make observations.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Wilson says, “It might’ve just been a shadow, it might’ve not—thought it was a suicide ‘til you were all saying otherwise—but I looked up, cause I thought  there was someone in the window. Just for a moment.”

Peggy nods. It is an obvious observation to make when one comes across a body that had fallen from a building built of mostly glass windows. “When did the rest of the group spot the body?”

“Not until Loki tripped over it,” Sam tells her. That had been in the file. Jack and Sousa had been sure to make a note of it, that one of the kids had been walking backwards and that none of them had seen Professor Erskine in the dark until the impact. They had also made a note, in large red pen, as well as several times verbally, that the kid was difficult.

By now, she and the team have already surmised everything Mr. Wilson has given her, but she does think if anyone were to notice, it would be him. “From where?” she says. “Which pane?”

“Looked like the third from where I was standing,” he says too quickly not to have been contemplating this for a long while, “but that’s just a matter of perception, isn’t it? Anyway, we all thought the sound we heard was some sort of animal, but then, well, the body kind of makes it obvious that crash wasn’t an animal.”

The second windowpane of Erskine’s lab was broken, so from a ground level, the third or fourth must have been the only places a person may have been visible. Again, Peggy nods. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Wilson,” she says, and looks past him to the glass where Jarvis is watching. “That will be all.”

Within seconds, the door to the room opens, Jack standing there ready to pull Mr. Wilson out, and put Mr. Xavier in. In contrast to Mr. Wilson, or most men, really, Charles Xavier is rather on the shorter end, and gives off the impression of a lost, fluffy little bunny. It’s the eyes, Peggy tells herself, which are big and blue and make him seem much too trustworthy to ever be truly trusted. She distrusts him instantly.

According to file, he’s a graduate student working on his PhD in his first year, and goes to Cornell, which is a full half hour away. It makes little sense why he works in a separate school, though it seems he has funding either way. Before she even has a chance to speak, he says, “I won’t speak with anyone until you swear you won’t _torment_ my sister,” with an English accent as thick as hers. “She’s a bit traumatized right now, and your belligerence will only aggravate her distress further.”

Peggy looks past him, as she did with Mr. Wilson, to beyond the glass, where Jarvis can see her, though she can’t see him. “I can’t do that,” she says, pressing her mouth into a line. “Your sister is a witness to a murder.”

“We were celebrating her eighteenth birthday,” the boy, who seems much more a boy than his friend did, says, insistent, “but she’s not eighteen for another three hours, if you’d like to be technical. Please, at least allow us to be _interrogated_ together.”

He turns big, doe-eyes past her to where a camera is visible, imploring Jarvis rather than her. “I must insist,” she begins, but is interrupted again when the door opens, and the boy’s sister is led in. She glares at her partner who looks down, away, as the girl takes a seat beside her brother, shaking worse than he is. Somehow, Peggy missed that he was shaking at all until now.

After Jarvis leaves, shutting the door obnoxiously softly behind him, she turns her attention back to the two college students in front of her. “Let’s begin with the basics,” she says, glancing to Mr. Xavier’s file, because her partner had not been kind enough to also bring the girl’s. “Are you going to call a lawyer?”

Strictly speaking, because they were witnesses she didn’t need to offer them a lawyer at all, but she’s trying to put Mr. Xavier at ease so that he doesn’t cause a fuss. She doesn’t doubt much the girl in front of her is innocent, as she’s been at the school less than a week; but it’s the older brother that gives Peggy that cold suspicion that’s often more right than wrong. As he was below with the others, he would’ve needed an accomplice, but he has enough connections to be suspect. He was Professor Erskine’s teaching assistant and interned with him in the lab, working a job that had little to do with his dissertation. The file says he graduated as valedictorian from Cornell just last year and was accepted immediately into a doctoral program, which must mean he’s more than just a bit above average in intelligence. And now he’s fidgeting.

Miss Xavier’s hand lashes out, wrapping around her brother’s to keep his hands from twisting around ends of his sweater sleeves. “No,” she says, and glances Mr. Xavier, who’s four years her senior and yet looks as young as she is.

“We can’t afford one,” he adds. “I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”

Despite his effort to keep the attention away from Miss Xavier, Peggy turns to her first. “What were you doing there?” she asks.

“It’s my birthday,” the girl says, composed well enough even with the red veining in her eyes from crying. “We were walking back from the dining commons.”

If they can’t afford a lawyer, and they braved campus food for dinner, then these two really must not have much money at all. A look like guilt flits across Mr. Xavier’s face at that, and disappears just as quickly. “It’s the main path through campus,” he says. “It leads to the dorms and the parking lot.”

Peggy thinks back to what Jack had told her about the campus. There were long hills paved like driveways that followed the paths of the buildings around the entire campus, connecting the school buildings and the dorms that were placed on both sides of the main part. The buildings were close together and dimly lit, but narrow enough that if an entire group of them were walking together, someone would have seen something. “What did you see while you were walking back?”

Mr. Xavier tenses his shoulders; his sister worries her bottom lip. “I didn’t see anything,” she says. “There was just—a noise. Shattering glass, you know? And then—and then Loki fell. Over him. And Natasha called the cops.”

“You can go now,” Peggy says, wanting to girl out of her office as quickly as possible to speak with the boy alone. Immediately, the door opens, Jack rather than Jarvis in the doorway, and Miss Xavier’s hand visibly tightens around her brother’s. “Miss Xavier, that is _all_.”

“Leave,” Mr. Xavier says, untangling their hands. “I’ll be fine.”

Though his sister doesn’t seemed calmed much by that, her large blue eyes looking to him imploringly. He shakes his head, and after a moment she stands, and follows Jack out the door, leaving Peggy alone with the suspect. “Now,” she says as his fingers instantly return to their fiddling, “tell me about your relationship with Professor Erskine.”

Running his fingers through his hair, Mr. Xavier says, “He was my professor during my undergraduate years. He was a brilliant man, and I was delighted to learn from him. He offered me the position even though he was switching schools, and I didn’t want to pass up the chance to learn more from him. I followed him, of course, I had more opportunity for research, and it gave me the chance to see my sister. We’ve been working quite well together.”

He’s a nervous talker, then. Grasping onto the opportunity to get more from him before he calms, she says, “Mr. Zavier—”

“ _X_ -zavier,” the boy cuts in, and he holds up one of his fingers. He leans forward with an extremely serious expression, the kind of look one wears when they are about to repeat something they have said a million times before. Peggy should know, as she’s had to repeat her orders to Jarvis more times than she can possibly count in her lifetime. Mr. Xavier’s tone changes as he enunciates the X. “The X is pronounced. Would you like to practice? I realize it is confusing, I must insist that you pronounce my name correctly.”

She blinks owlishly, and like that, her entire perception and understanding of the boy shifts. Mr. X-zavier is no killer, but a dork of greater proportions than Jarvis on his most posh days. “That will be all, Mr. Xavier,” she says, enunciating his name just as he did. “You can join your sister.”

She sighs in relief when he leaves and Jarvis brings in the next witness. The boy is of average height, with a baby face reminiscent of James Dean complete with chipmunk cheeks. He throws himself into the chair, arms sprawled out in front of him, and Peggy has the impression that he would have been lounging had the situation been reversed. As it is, he’s nearly buried in an oversized hoodie, long hair shadowing his face. His teeth worry at his lip, like the Xavier girl before him.

Looking down at the file Jarvis gave her, she notes the worried look and hesitation that he tosses the boy before he makes his way out of the room. His name is James Barnes and he is a twenty-one-year-old senior engineering major. Nothing in his file indicates anything suspicious, except for a few citations for making his own parking spot, and something called a “resident life candle violation,” though Peggy hasn’t the foggiest clue what that’s supposed to mean.

There’s not much reason to question him about the murder. Peggy stares at him, making a note of the unblinking stare he gives back to her, refusing to back down. “You’ve had Professor Erskine as a professor. Tell me, what was he like as a teacher? Any grievances with him?”

He smacks his lips, and says, “Me? None. He’s fine. Grads fairly enough, the work was difficult but nothing that some extra effort doesn’t help. Far as I know, he’s never gotten a bad review. ‘Cept maybe some jocks who can’t tell a pencil from a pen.”

Peggy nods, scribbling in her note pad, _victim unlikely to have angered students_ before looking back to him. Unlike Mr. Wilson, and even more so than Mr. Xavier, this boy seems like a boy, physically and emotionally. He sits with the air of a confident youth who knows he’s smart and good at what he does, but unaware of what that means. His eyes reveal how shaken he really is, and his fingers tap a staccato rhythm on the table.

“Are you absolutely sure that no student had any grievances?” she asks, reiterating her question just in case there is something that, in the spur of the moment, Mr. Barnes might have missed.

“Do I look like I know everyone that’s a biology major?” he asks sarcastically and raises his eyebrows as if trying and failing to raise just one. Peggy glares at him, and he cows a little, humble and contrite and, she can see, a bit apologetic. She gets the impression he’s not normally so harsh, and that the stress of the night is wearing away at his patience.

“This is standard questioning, Mr. Barnes,” she says. She softens her voice to reassure him in a way that she hadn’t felt the need to with Mr. Wilson, and certainly not with Mr. Xavier. “All of your companions are being asked the same question.”

He leans back, and the tension in his arms, which is clear because of his rolled up sleeves, relaxes a little. In a soft voice, he answers, “Ma’am, I don’t really know many of the other SOBL majors. If any of them had grievances, I’m not the one to ask.” His eyes are bright and guileless.

“Very well,” she answers, shuffling papers around to make it look like she is doing something, a reassurance tactic that she learned at the academy, “then if there is nothing more you can tell me, you can go. You may be called in for additional questioning as the investigation goes on.”

Mr. Barnes nods and stands from the chair in one swift movement. He opens his mouth, an expression of indecision crosses his face. He is clearly wrestling with himself. She waits as patiently as she can. “Mr. Erskine’s not normally at school on a Friday night,” he says. “If that helps any. He usually spends the night at home with his wife and the rest of his family. For Shabbat.”

The door opens as Jarvis shuffles the next witness in. Mr. Barnes and the newcomer, a gangly blonde a tiny bit taller than him, step close to one another. The blonde reaches over to fix Mr. Barnes’ hair, and looks like he wants to embrace him.

“You alright?” the blonde asks, and shoots her a quick, assessing look. He gives off the impression of one of the many New York pigeons Peggy had encountered when she first moved to this country. Buried under the worry and stress is a scrappy, fight-me expression that seems to be a permanent fixture on the contours of his handsome face.

Mr. Barnes nods, resting his head for a brief moment on his friend’s—scratch that, Peggy notices, _boyfriend’s_ —shoulder before he leaves with Jarvis. Her partner places a hand on Mr. Barnes’ shoulder in the same comforting manner he has towards her whenever a particularly hard case is grating at her last nerve.

Her next witness is breathing heavily, his chest puffed out in a way that could be righteous indignation or could be medical issues, perhaps both, and he sits down with a firm, unwavering gaze. His file, which Jarvis had accidently handed to her along with Mr. Barnes’, says that they are the same age. His name is Steve Rogers and he’s a graphic design major. Likely, he has never encountered Professor Erskine before in his life, only hearing about him secondhand. He looks angry, however, and Jack had told her that he had been calling for a search party in order to find the murderer. Apparently, he’s the type to walk into hell and back if he thought it was right, almost like a soldier but without the thousand-yard stare typical of those who have served. As he talks and grows more agitated, his Brooklyn accent gets heavier.

Peggy resists the urge to sigh or the desire to rub her hand over her face. She checks her watch and makes a note of the time, running through the number of witnesses still left, and comes to the horrible conclusion that a flight out to her parents is unlikely tonight. She looks to him and asks, “Mr. Rogers, did you see anything?”

The questions progress smoothly enough. The kid, like most of his friends, had seen nothing, too focused on their conversation. His answers are interspersed with questions of his own, as if he is the detective, telling her about blood smattering and D.N.A. testing, as well as his different hypotheses. He is almost more trying than Mr. Xavier, but unlike the T.A., there’s something about his determination to help the police with the case that Peggy finds endearing.

Several times, she has to catch herself before she smiles at him. His knees are shaking, and they rattle the table a little bit. Before she gets caught up, she interrupts his rant about how the school’s cell phone service is shite and the killer would not have been able to contact an accomplice because of it, with a question, “Has Mr. Barnes ever expressed any exasperation towards Professor Erskine to you?”

“What?” he asks with a gobsmacked expression. “Of course not. Bucky loves him. Says he’s one of the best professors in the bio department.” His stiffens, suddenly every inch the protective mate, bristling at the indicated slight of suspicion towards Mr. Barnes.

She hums, nodding. “Of course. I think that will be all, Mr. Rogers. We’ll contact you if we need anything.”

Again, the door opens, but Jarvis is alone this time, shuffling in more awkwardly than usual as Mr. Rogers walks out. “Er,” her partner says, holding the next file close to him and drumming his fingers against him. “It seems Miss Romanoff has diplomatic immunity.”

For as surprised as Peggy is, Mr. Roger’s is more so, frozen in the doorway with his mouth parted and his eyebrows up high into his forehead. “Natasha has diplomatic immunity?” he says as a question, but scurries out fast enough under the force of Peggy’s glare.

“Are you _really_ telling me,” she says through clenched teeth, crossing her arms and falling back against the chair, “that one of our witness that might have pertinent information, the one who _called_ , has _diplomatic immunity?_ ”

Eyes flitting to the door, clearly nervous, Jarvis nods. “Er,” he says again. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, really.”

Shaking her hand dismissively, annoyedly, she says, “Go get the next one, then. I don’t have time for this.”

“Of course, of course,” he says, already leaving, and she basks in her moment of quiet after his departure, rubbing at her temples.

When the door opens again, a tall, well-built young man with hair like the golden locks of a Loreal commercial enters, Jarvis just behind with a file on hand. Peggy feels a pang of sympathy when she sees the name across the top, for no one’s parents should be cruel enough to name their child _Thor_.

“Mr. Hansen,” she begins, but gets immediately cut off when he says, “You allowed Charles and Raven to be questioned together. I wish to speak with my brother.”

The file says his brother’s name is Loki, who is, if Peggy recalls correctly, why she’s here tonight. Jack and Sousa took one look at the kid who they described as “creepily standing over the body and eyeing it up like a bug,” listened to about two minutes of him speaking, and pawned the case off on her so that they wouldn’t have to deal with him. Even Jarvis spoke not a word of protest, agreeing with Sousa’s comment that she’s less likely to murder the boy than Jack. Whether or not that’s true is still to be determined.

“No,” she says firmly. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Hansen, but the only reason we allowed that was because Miss Xavier is still seventeen. Your brother is eighteen, an adult under the law. No further exceptions will be made.”

Though Mr. Hansen’s stature lends itself to anger, his express dissolves not into frustration, but that of a emotionally devastated corgi. It’s only mildly less annoying than Mr. Xavier’s wibbling expression, which seemed much less genuine. From what she has heard about the brother, only a saint would be able to love him, so it makes sense, she supposes.

Mr. Hansen sighs, long and dramatic. “I saw my brother trip over a professor’s body today, Detective Carter,” he says, referring to her in a way that does not make her feel as though she’s her mother. “I don’t want this to be any harder on him than it was already.”

From what she’s heard, this is far from the case. “Mr. Hansen, I must insist that you cooperate,” she says. “I’m sorry, but there is nothing that can be done. The faster you answer my questions, the faster you can get back to your brother. Now, what did you see?”

Similar to the others, he saw nothing, and was caught completely by surprise when his “poor brother” tripped over backwards. She latches onto this, realizing what it means, and asks, “Can you please describe the formation in which you were all walking? I have a notepad if it would be easier for you to draw.”

Peggy removes a notepad from her jacket, and hands it to Mr. Hansen, along with a pen. It takes a few minutes but soon he slides it back. There are crudely drawn stick figures facing north, with one figure, labeled “Loki,” facing towards them, “Raven” directly before him, and the others scattered around and behind her. Mr. Hansen has taken the liberty of sketching the school, as well as the uphill slope behind the group. The scenery is unnecessary, but she appreciates the effort.

She thanks him, and motions for him to go. He shuffles off quickly, in obvious relief. There is a bit of a commotion when Jarvis tries to bring in his brother. She can hear the sounds of Mr. Hansen’s protests but they go nowhere, as Jarvis quickly opens and closes the door, locking the last witness inside.

Loki is young, but tall, only an inch or two shorter than his brother. Like a teenager going through his rebellious face, he has grungy black hair, and an ill-fitting Shakespearean face with a lanky build that looks like it should be wielding a calligraphy pen. There is an expression of distaste and annoyance on his face and he doesn’t even wait for an invitation before sliding himself, smoothly, almost snakelike, into the chair. He folds his hands in front of him on the table and stares at her with a smirk.

“Detective,” he says. Oddly, his accent is English. There’s nothing in his file to indicate any time spent in England, and his brother spoke with a hint of something foreign that was decidedly not English, so it takes Peggy off-guard. Now the boy has his head perched on his fists. “What do you want to know? If you’re looking for your killer, you’re not going to be getting it out of this band of misfits.”

Instantly, Peggy understands why Jack was terrified he might kill this kid if he spent too much time with him. His attitude is as high school-like as his hair, and his tone one of complete disrespect for any authority figure regardless of circumstance. Like Mr. Barnes, he exudes the air of one who knew he was smart, but unlike his friend, this boy’s the type to overestimate his own value. He wears arrogance around him like a cloak.

She looks to the drawing his brother made, and, without bothering to respond to that level of snark, pushes it over. “You were looking towards the window, Mr. Hansen,” she says. “If anyone saw something, it was you.”

Loki raises an eyebrow and his smirk widens. His eyes are glittering like a thief about to break into a candy shop. “I might have,” he says. “Possibly. Or not. I might have very poor night vision. You don’t know.”

Glaring at him, her jaw clenches and Peggy says, “Mr. Hansen, someone has died. Do not take that kind of blase attitude around me or I will bring you up on charges.”

Rolling his eyes, Loki says, “You can’t. I know that much about the law. Threats aren’t going to work with me, Miss Carter.”

“ _Detective_ Carter,” she says, in a clipped tone. She is already at her wit’s end with this kid and wants him out of her sight. “Tell me what you know.”

He shrugs and slumps back with an air of boredom. “Howard Stark’s office is right next to Erskine’s,” he says. “He and Lensherr came out pretty fast after the corpse fell. Maybe you should look into that. I saw someone…”

Whatever he saw, Peggy didn’t hear. The door slams open with a _bang_ , and a tall, regal looking woman strides in with all the grace of a mother lioness. Loki instantly sits up, back straight, the rebellious little snot completely gone, and he suddenly seems like a shaken teenage boy.

“Mamma,” he say as Jarvis rushes in from behind, hair flyaway and panic painted across his thin face.

As if gliding, the woman goes to her son and hugs him tight, petting his hair, whispering into it, “Shh, baby. It’s fine. I want you to step out for a moment, go stand with your brother. We’re going home.”

The brother is still hovering in the door, crushed corgi expression firmly in place, but now laced with a splattering of hope. Without delay, Loki hops from his chair and out to the door to join his brother, leaving Peggy at the mercy of his mother.

The woman glares at Peggy as if she is a cockroach that she would dearly love to crush under her expensive shoes. In a thick, foreign accent, she says, “How _dare_ you call in these kids without a single lawyer present. I thought this was a police office.”

“I’m sorry to inform you, Mrs. Hansen,” Peggy says, pushing the chair back and getting to her feet, “but I am not required by law to give witnesses a lawyer. Also, none of these witnesses are kids, and therefore the office does not need to notify parents or guardians. They are not minors.”

She probably could have left the last bit out, but she is running on her last nerves. This night was an entire clusterfuck of a situation, and Peggy wants nothing more than to go home and soak in a long, hot shower.

Before she or the woman can say anything else, a man that she hadn’t noticed before steps in, cane in hand tapping against the walls and sunglasses perched on his nose despite the dim lighting. Somehow, this day had, in fact, gotten even worse. He can be no one else but a lawyer. “Miss Raven Xavier is technically a minor for another two hours,” he says. “They were celebrating her birthday tonight, but, if you look at her file, her date of birth is tomorrow. A parent or guardian by law should have been contacted. I’m sure your department doesn’t need an inquiry made against it, though? Not tonight.”

After a day as bad as this one, time lost its meaning, and she realizes with a brief burst of horror that when Mr. Xavier informed her his sister’s birthday wasn’t for another three hours, he wasn’t getting technical about her time of birth, but by how close it was to midnight. “I spoke to her with her legal guardian,” she says, gaining her composure. She doesn’t mention that it was only an older brother. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”

He smiles at her, all dimples and perfect teeth. “Matt Murdock,” he says, and holds out his hand in the absolute wrong direction. Peggy, not willing to be an asshole, moves towards the direction he is holding his hand out and takes it. She shakes it firmly once, then twice, and let's go, introducing herself with the English politeness bred into her since the cradle.

Mrs. Hansen crosses her arms under her chest, leveling both Peggy and Jarvis with a angry glare, and says, “Frigga Hansen. All of them are coming home with me this instant. I have contacted their parents and they agree. If you go through proper channels, and only through proper channels, you may continue your questions at a more reasonable hour.”

Jarvis, who’s been uncharacteristically silent the entire night, finally speaks, “With all due respect, Madam, a murder has been committed, and the police must do all we can to find the suspect. Surely a woman of your stature understands this?”

“They’re just witnesses, Mrs. Hansen,” Peggy says as calmly as she can manage given the situation. “None of them are suspects. If you want to take them home, you can, but be sure they’ll be called back for further questioning, even if a lawyer needs to be present.” She shoots a look to Mr. Murdock, who’s looking off somewhere to her right, just beyond her shoulder, as if trying to peer through the one-way glass.

With a sneer, Mrs. Hansen says, “I don’t doubt it. Be assured that a lawyer will be present. For all of them.” With that, she glides out of the room as quickly as she came, heels clicking thunderously against the tiled floor.

 

 

Hours later, Charles sits on the floor of a manor nearly as nice as the one from his childhood, settled between Raven and Bucky with their backs against the couch, Natasha’s feet curled near his head.

“That detective made it seem like you were a suspect, Bucky,” Steve says, waving his arms, his head bobbing forward with the force of his movements as he paces back and forth. “You! She was a lovely woman, but the police department is clearly not doing their job.”

Bucky sighs and shakes his head. “Shut up, Steve, and sit down. You’ll tear holes in this carpet.”

Right now, everyone’s tense enough to snap, though Charles doesn’t know who will first. It’s not going to be Steve, who’s already frayed, or Bucky, who’s watching his boyfriend too closely to worry much about anything else. Maybe it’ll be Charles himself, who can’t get the image out of his mind of Abraham’s body lying in the shrubs, broken and bloody and covered in equal parts in bone shards poking through the skin and shattered glass.

Sam, always the voice of reason, butts in and says, “She was just doing her job, Steve. They have to treat us like that right now. She didn’t honestly think Bucky was a suspect.”

“But she honestly thought Charles was,” Raven says, slumped against his shoulder and looking straight at the wall rather than any of their friends. “She just wanted to get me out of there to talk to you.”

From the corner of his eye, Charles sees Loki look up for a second before going back to considering the cuts on his hands from where he fell into the bushes. “Perhaps she thought he was attractive,” he says. “It’s the doe-eyes.”

Natasha’s foot twitches, knocking into the side of Charles’ head. He looks up, and finds her long red hair pulled back from her face, exposing her inquisitive expression, along with her full annoyance at Loki’s cattiness, or so he assumes. Perhaps it’s projection, because he wants to punch his sister’s best friend a bit for that one, too.

“Loki,” she says sharply, “now’s not the time.”

Thor returns, handing them each pillows and blankets. He looks tired, dark circles prominent under his eyes, and mouth tight. “Mother says you can take the guest rooms in pairs, but you’ll have to make the beds yourselves,” he says, before looking to his brother. “Come on. It’s time to go to bed.”

Charles hugs the pillow tight, relishing its softness but he can’t shake the foreboding feeling that sleep will be elusive tonight. Insomnia’s not unknown to him, and better than nightmares. “I’ll take the floor,” he says, joining the others in sluggishly standing, holding his hand out for Raven. “Sleep sounds like a good idea.”

One by one, they trek up the stairs and disappear into the guest rooms. It’s been a long day, and a longer night, and he doesn’t anticipate a much better morning to come. 


	2. Chapter 2

Sunday night, two days after the murder of Professor Erskine and just hours after his funeral, Charles bursts into the main room of Apartment 26A with no umbrella, a shirt ruined from the rain, and a look of devastation Raven hasn’t seen in six years.

Natasha, who’s in the middle of making a dinner of borscht and garlic bread, freezes at the same moment as Raven. “What’s wrong?” the other girl asks immediately, spoon held tightly in hand but no longer moving. “Were you followed?”

Without even acknowledging the paranoia he usually shoots down, Charles sits heavily into the couch like he can’t even deal with the idea of standing anymore. Raven crosses the room in three steps, taking a seat next to him, and repeats, “What’s wrong?”

His face is pale. “Everything,” he says, shaking his head. “Everything is wrong.”

Normally, she’d call him out on being overdramatic, but given everything that’s happened, it doesn’t seem appropriate. Steve and Bucky emerge from their room after a moment, pizza grease still dusting their fingers, curious. With a deep breath, Charles says, “It’s the school board. They want me—taking over Abraham’s courses.”

Bucky laughs, but it’s breathy and horrified and short. “You’re joking,” he says. “What _assholes_.”

“Well, you are the best one for the job,” Steve says quickly as Raven sits back in shocked silence, unable to accept how anyone would be so stupid to think Charles can teach a class when he’s like this. That they would ask right after Professor Erskine’s funeral. “Actually, you’re the only one smart enough for the job.”

Too loudly, Natasha turns off the stove, and moves the pot to another burner. “There’s something wrong with all of this,” she says. “I told you.”

“Shut up,” Raven says, done with her friend’s crazy conspiracy theories. “Save this for later, got it?”

“What are you talking about?” Charles says, lifting his head to look around, eyes wide, as Natasha goes to reply. “What conspiracy theories?”

“That Professor Erskine had research someone else wanted their hands on,” she answers, shooting a glance to Raven, who narrows her eyes. The last thing her brother needs is to be more agitated than he already is. For a lot of reasons, he doesn’t really do stuff that makes him anxious. “It makes sense. Weren’t you his T.A. because he had a side project?”

Charles nods, and runs a hand down his face. “Yes, yes,” he says. “But it was nothing groundbreaking.” As he says it, he looks away, which no one else but Raven seems to notice, and always means he’s lying.

“Natasha, away from the stove,” Raven says, up and shooing her friend away from the pot of unfinished goop. “I’m sorry, but he deserves better.”

Despite how clearly offended she is, Natasha does back away, and the boys go over to join Charles on the couch. Steve, ever the mother hen, goes into comfort mode instantly.

Unfortunately, with the other girl using the good pan for the garlic bread, Raven’s forced to use the small one that takes forever to clean, but she’ll make do. Her brother’s a mess, and even if grilled cheese isn’t as great a cure as lasagna, it’s quick to cook, and hers is awesome.

She cuts the tomato first into nice thin slices, then the rest of the Italian bread. As Bucky says, “Why didn’t they give it to Professor Stark?” she adds the mozzarella and the perfect amount of basil, throwing everything together onto the buttered, horrible pan.

“Between his classes here and the ones in the county college,” her brother answers, “he just doesn’t have the time. I’m the only one qualified.”

Though Raven’s still new to this whole college thing, she’s pretty sure the add-drop period hasn’t ended yet, which means all of Professor Erskine’s students could just find different classes. But before she can say this, the lock buzzes, the door swings open, and Loki enters, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Oh good,” he says, and throws himself down onto the chair that’s back faces the door, “You’re all here. I have news.”

He trails off, and Raven knows he’s just waiting for one of them to snap and ask him what is going on. With a mildly expectant expression, he looks around to all of them, and, after no one answers, he rolls his eyes. “Stark and Lehnsherr have been pulled in for questioning. They’re being considered as suspects.”

He sits back to watch the reactions unfold like a movie director reviewing a scene. Like a pigeon, Steve’s chest is puffed out, his face red. Not even bothering to acknowledge Loki’s shenanigans or react to the news, Natasha moves behind Raven to make sure that the grilled cheese does not burn and set off the fire alarm. Again.

Incredulously, Bucky says, “Professor Lehnsherr’s a dick but a murderer? Come on. That man can’t even kill a mouse.”  

With a groan, Charles falls back against the couch, and Raven flips over the grilled cheese just in time to stop it from burning.

 

 

At twenty-seven, Peggy is one of the youngest on the force, but this particular case is just making her feel so old.

Howard Stark, potential suspect, is an adjunct professor at the age of twenty-five, having finished his PhD remarkably fast just this past May. Though he’s barely been a professor for two weeks, his RateMyProfessor already has two pages filled with compliments. As Mr. Xavier is now, Professor Stark was Professor Erskine’s T.A. throughout the duration of his graduate degree, which, from what she’s managed to gather, is supposed to mean he’s smart.

After waiting two hours for the paperwork to process and Professor Stark to decide he does not, in fact, wish to have a lawyer because he’s innocent, she’s finally in the room with him, standing across the table with her hands balled into fists against her hips. “So,” she says, staring down at him in a seemingly futile attempt to intimidate him, “you spent the time of Abraham Erskine’s murder just next door, sitting at a desk near the wall, somehow heard no sound of a struggle, and still walked out those front doors just two minutes after he was pushed?”

There was overwhelming evidence the moment Jack and Sousa arrived, they said, that there was some form of a struggle. Just yesterday she went to see the crime scene herself, and saw the turned desk, and the flipped chairs, and the skid marks from the victim’s shoes leading to the shattered window as if the body itself weren’t proof enough of a fight. Even if Professor Stark were involved, Jarvis was right in saying all it took was one look to know he wasn’t physically capable of any of this. The man’s little more than a scrawny, squirrely scientist, complete with an obnoxious mustache, fighting his way up the hierarchy of academia.

And, Peggy quickly learns, his squirrely appearance extends to his personality. “We were listening to music,” he says. “Bach is extremely important to fostering creative thought.”

She raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Creative thought?” she says. “What could you possibly be creating at eight-thirty at night when you could have been home, enjoying a relaxing night in?”

“Erik and I are talking about doing a hybrid class,” Professor Stark says, crossing his arms and leaning back against the chair. “You can combine Freshman English in the spring semester with a different discipline to create a three day a week class to knock out two course requirements in one go. Works for people with a lot of major requirements so they don’t get caught with their cores later on. Doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to do it with the guy you share a desk with.” He pauses briefly before adding, “Oh, and we were complaining about advisees.”

Peggy understands the casual truth behind the end statement, though she’d rather not. She knows enough about wanting to complain about the people you had to stare at, day in and day out, without being allowed to punch them for being annoying. “That’s it?” she says. “And you heard _nothing_ during the silences when you stopped talking?” Privately, she thinks that perhaps he would never be able to hear anything over the size of his massive ego.

Shrugging, Professor Stark says, “Guess it’s not the sort of thing you listen to. Walls aren’t that thin in upper Kirby, and all the rooms vibrate. Ask any professor. You’ve gotta play music just to block it out.”

She purses her lips, thinking that he might have a point with that. Even she'd noticed the humming, but she'd check it out herself again anyway—or send Jack, she considers darkly. “Believe me when I say we will,” she answers, unwilling to cross him off the accomplice list quite yet, but equally willing to admit he can’t have killed Professor Erskine directly. That didn’t mean that the other man, Professor Lehnsherr, was innocent or that their “creative project” hadn’t included tossing Erskine out the window while Stark kept watch. “Did you have any grievances with the professor?” she continues, changing gears. “Any feelings of resentment perhaps at being replaced by a new assistant?”

With a smirk, Stark says, “Charles Xavier is no where near as smart as me. Why would I need to be jealous?”

If he was attempting to seem innocent through his arrogance, he failed immensely; immediately, Peggy only suspects him more, because rarely does anyone say something as cocky as that with any hint of truth. Undoubtedly, there was more to their relationship then Stark was going to admit. “Really?” she asks, narrowing her eyes. “No resentment at all that someone new has the opportunity to work with your mentor?”

The moment the words come out of her mouth, she realizes what this means. Already they’ve realized that one of the most logical reasons to murder someone of such renown in the scientific community would be over research, and no one would know that better than his current assistant. There’s no one in the department who could analyse it themselves, if she’s to be honest. Regardless of how utterly obnoxious Charles Xavier appears to be, he may be their only option.

“I still worked with him,” Stark says too forcefully, but she’s barely listening now, mind moving too quickly to comprehend much else except the dawning horror. “I’m a professor.”

Mr. Xavier is one now, too, she thinks to herself, but says nothing. “Yes, yes,” she says instead, finished now that she has what she needs. “You’re free to go, Stark.”

Though he protests that no, it’s not simply _Stark_ but _Professor_ Stark, she ignores him, looking instead to Jack rather than Jarvis who drags Professor Lehnsherr into the questioning room and takes Stark out. There’s something disconcerting about the newcomer. He’s tall and lean, but his face is razor sharp, giving him a distinctly predatory air. There’s a carelessness to his expression, and he’s too still. He slides into the chair in front of her, staring her down impassively.

Peggy looks at him with equal impassiveness and says, “Professor Lehnsherr, I hope you understand the seriousness of this situation. Are you certain you do not wish to call a lawyer?”

Erik shrugs casually and says, “She’s already on her way. She should be here in about twenty minutes, give or take traffic jams. Is there anything else you need, Detective Carter?”

For the first time since this investigation’s begun, she finds herself trapped by something as simple as a _lawyer_. The likelihood of reaching England for her father’s birthday, now in two days, was as distant a dream as sleep is. “Then that would be all, Professor Lehnsherr,” she says, thinning her lips into a line reminiscent of her mother. He nods curtly, and she thinks he is more annoying than Mr. Xavier. Though not quite as annoying as the Hansen child. “I can assure you, Mr. Lehnsherr, this will not be the last time we contact you. The police take murder very seriously. We have to exhaust all avenues.”

He smiles, and Peggy resists the urge to flip over backwards on her chair at his impressive set of full, white teeth pulled back in a shark-like smile. “Goodbye, Detective Carter,” he says, and stands to leave without invitation.

 

 

Erik flips through his phone, scrolling past pictures of cats on Instagram, and waits for Ms. Rosenthal to show up when he hears the voices.

“I’m telling you that it’s not Howard,” a posh, British voice says, male and loud enough that Erik can hear it over the clamor of police officers shuffling around with their work. “Frankly,” the voice continues, “he’d likely explode himself while trying.”

Erik snorts, because whoever that is he’d gotten down Stark’s personality to a tee. There were burn marks on the wall of their office attesting to that fact.

“No,” says another voice in agreement, “It’s not Stark. Scrawny geek doesn’t have the upper body strength.”

Erik’s mouth twists. Stark’s arms looked a bit like uncooked noodles. It would take a lot of time at the gym that Stark would never deign to lower himself to before he had arms worthy enough to lift a man of Erskine’s stature out the window. Frankly, Erik doesn’t even understand why either of them is here to begin with or why he isn’t still at home curled up with Toulouse waking up to the sound of his five a.m. alarm.

Detective Carter’s voice answers, “He might not be guilty of killing but he may be an accomplice.” Immediately, his amusement grinds to a halt at what she means even before she says it. “I can’t believe that neither he nor Professor Lehnsherr heard anything. Even if the buzzing really is as loud as Stark says, their offices are right next to each other. There is something more to this, and I’m sure it has something to do with Professor Lehnsherr.”

One more male voice says, “You don’t normally see a professor that ripped. He’d be strong enough to do it.”

While Erik would normally be flattered, his mind is racing too much to acknowledge it. She thought he was guilty. The detective honestly thought that he had killed Erskine, and likely wasn’t going to stop until she proved it. It didn’t matter that strange noises came from that office all the time whenever Erskine was staying up late to conduct one of his experiments. Or whenever the T.A. felt the need to crash in there, and well, also conduct crazy experiments. There had been no reason for either he or Howard to suspect anything amiss. Not until the glass had shattered.

The clacking of heels on the linoleum floor alerts him to the presence of his lawyer, a tall woman with big hair straight from the eighties and the patterned shirts to match. She shoves her briefcase at him and says, “Hold this. I have to get this coffee stain off my blouse.”

As she walks off to the bathroom, a man with a cane and sunglasses goes pass, tapping the wall, file clutched in hand. Erik thinks nothing of it.

 

 

When Charles was thirteen, in his first year of boarding school and first year back in England after half a decade, he sneaked into a university neurobiology course just because he could. It was a Tuesday, and he was supposed to be in his physical education course, but soon he was forging his attendance to sit in the back row of the Oxford lecture hall instead. The course was taught by a visiting professor by the name of Abraham Erskine, who Charles hadn’t known noticed him at all until the final day when he found a biscuit and a note at his unofficial seat.

His relationship with the professor was one long formed, and it’s disconcerting now to stand in Simon 208 in the wake of twenty-three students his age or older leaving, having just released Professor Erskine’s mandatory Advanced Seminar in Biology twenty minutes early. By the time he leaves himself, it’s ten minutes past the proper time, the next class is preparing to filter in, and he only has an hour and a half to return to Cornell for a meeting with his adviser. And if that particular meeting goes over even five minutes, as it will take another five minutes minimum to reach his car in the disaster zone the school insists in calling a proper parking lot, then he’ll likely be late for his second class of the day that runs from six to eight. How he’ll last like this for the rest of the semester is still up to question, but it’s not as though he hasn’t managed worse before, even if his schedule did force him to miss Abraham’s funeral.

Any hope for making it to the meeting on time, though, snuffs out abruptly when he hits the door that leads to the front lot, and finds it won’t open regardless of how hard he hits the handicap button with his elbow. It’s a pull door from the inside rather than a push and with the number of books and essays he’s balancing in his hand, he can’t seem to get it open any other way.

That is, until an arm reaches out from behind it, and pulls it open for him. “It’s broken,” Erik Lehnsherr says as Charles doesn’t move, elbow still against the handicap button. “It’s time you invest in a bag.”

Most professors have totes for their essays, but he hadn’t even been aware any were due until Bucky warned him just this morning. “Oh,” Charles says, a bit awkward, because the man in front of him is a suspect, and Detective Carter seems competent enough to deserve trust in her judgment. “Yes. Thank you. Terribly sorry, but could you?”

Lehnsherr mercifully understands, and follows Charles through the first door to open the second. Hot September air sweeps through, the heat soaking through his dress shirt and pants.

“Do you need—” Lehnsherr begins, brow bending in quizzically, but is cut off as Detective Carter appears from around the corner, his expression souring.

“Professor Lehnsherr, Mr. Xavier,” she says when she nears, pulling the sunglasses from her face. “I was unaware you were acquainted.”

Charles’ eyes flit from her to his new colleague. “We’re not,” he says, and adjusts his hold on his stack of his essays. “Is there anything either of us can help you with, Detective Carter?”

Though he doesn’t like her much, and he doesn’t think she likes him in the slightest, he won’t be antagonistic unless he has to. He’d rather not make the investigation of his mentor’s murder any more complicated than it already is.

“Just you, Mr. Xavier,” the detective says, looking not to him but to Lehnsherr. “You’re free to leave, Professor Lehnsherr.”

Erik sneers, shooting a look between the two of them. Then he nods abruptly and leaves.

After he’s well out of sight, the detective returns her attention to Charles. “We need to speak,” she says, folding her arms behind her back. “If you know of an empty classroom?”

“I don’t,” he says, which is true, because this isn’t his school and he only knows of where he’s sent or where he’s had to meet his friends. “But I’m on the way to a very important meeting that can’t be missed. If we could perhaps walk and talk to the end of the lot?”

“Meeting? With who?”

“My supervisor,” he answers. “It’s about my dissertation. As I said, very important.”

Her expression, surprisingly, loses some of its hardness when she says, “Yes, well, we can walk and talk. I’ll be straight to the point, then,” she continues, lowering her voice just enough, though it’s unnecessary with the lot as bare as it is. It’s mid-afternoon at the start of the next round of class, and everyone’s either here already, or had left from their last one ten minutes prior. “We are very aware that you were not only Erskine’s assistant in teaching, but also in the lab, which means you will know everything he did. Would you be able to tell if anything was missing, Mr. Xavier?”

By the time Natasha had suggested Abraham’s death may have been because of his research, Charles had already contemplated it as much as he’d allowed himself to, and with everything else going on, it’s been easy keeping the idea off his mind. Hearing Detective Carter say it is different, though, out here in the open rather than the safety of the small on-campus apartment still nicer than his own.

“Yes,” he says, and snakes his hand around the essays to take his keys from his front pocket, “but not until Saturday. I’ll require at least a day to search through everything.”

Though she doesn’t seem satisfied to hear the time restriction, she nods, and says, “All right. ‘Til Saturday, Mr. Xavier.”

Charles sighs as he watches her leave, reaching up to rub his temples. Right now, he desperately wishes he had never snuck into Professor Erskine’s neurobiology course.

 

 

The Galaxy Cafe sits right at the corner of Potts and Hogan, halfway between the restaurant and the school. When Raven enters on the Saturday morning after The Incident, she’s almost too exhausted to stand, overworked from eight hours of waitressing. All she wants is a pumpkin spice latte before finishing the drive to the hotel where she promised to meet Loki. She hadn’t intended on seeing the detective who interrogated Charles like he was actually a suspect just sitting there at a small table in the corner, sipping something from a mug rather than a travel cup. In her hands is a book, paperback with the cover bent back so she can’t read the title.

For a moment, she contemplates just walking out the front door, avoiding Detective Carter before she raises her head, and escaping the bad 80’s music that makes up the cafe’s playlist. Then Raven thinks better of it, because it’s _her_ favorite hipster coffee shop, and some cop with freakishly perfect hair isn’t going to force her out.  

“Are you watching us now or something?” she says, crossing the room in ten steps to stand in front of the table, arms crossed. “Because if you are, the Starbucks on campus gives you a much better vantage point.”

The woman looks up from her book, coffee in hand and curls neatly tucked over her one shoulder. “Excuse me?” she says, clearly affronted. “I’m not—watching you. It’s nothing more than coffee.”

“A detective in a hipster coffee shop?” Raven says, raising a brow. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the blonde barista staring unashamedly at them. “Yeah, whatever. What do you want?”

Frowning lightly, Detective Carter says, “And your brother called me belligerent,” more to herself than to Raven. Louder, she continues, “If you insist on questioning me, Miss Xavier, please sit down. You’ll make a scene.”

Reluctantly, stiffly, Raven does, the coffee in her hand burning her palm. “You’re lying,” she says firmly. “I knew you talked to my brother again.”

Detective Carter sips her own coffee, leaving a pale red ring around the edge where her bright red lipstick touched. Her curls are perfect, her makeup is perfect, even her suit—it’s distracting, even if Raven is rarely ever distracted by looks.

“I thought you might,” the woman says, crossing her legs and folding her hands over her knees. “You seem very close.” Her tone’s clipped, and her gaze uncomfortably attentive.

Raven flips her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she says. “But we’re just students. _Maybe_ you should let us focus on our classes. You know, the responsible thing to do.”

As a freshman, her classes aren’t that complicated, but her roommates are all seniors, and practically drowning after just two weeks. Having a detective around isn’t going to help anyone. After the disaster of her high school career, all Raven wanted was for her first year of college to go smoothly. Now her brother’s mentor’s dead, the police are on campus, and if Mrs. Hansen tries hard enough, she might actually reach Raven’s parents.

“I’m not stopping you from focusing on your classes,” the detective says, “Miss Xavier. I’m attempting to solve a murder. Do you have a problem with me dispensing justice for your teacher?”

Detective Carter’s brow is arched and she looks as though she’s considered Raven a bug at the bottom of her shoe that she can swat away, or a child so unimpressive and absorbed in her own world that she couldn’t possibly comprehend the seriousness of Professor Erskine’s death. Raven doesn’t know which was worse and a part of her wants to prove the woman wrong but what exactly was she supposed to do in a _coffee shop._

“Of course not. I have a problem with you targeting my brother,” she says, and grips the coffee tighter than she means to. “Oh, _fuck_.”

The coffee’s hot, and everywhere, and makes her shirt cling to her stomach as it seeps through the fabric. For a second, she’s too shocked to peak, and Detective Carter’s already grabbing napkins off the table to hand over—but Raven’s shirt, her new favorite shirt, is ruined. It was a birthday gift from Loki, just a week old, something yellow and airy and flora that she knows her friend never picked out himself. With fabric like this, the coffee’s never coming out.

“If you go to the bathroom, it might come out,” says the detective but Raven barely hears her. She pushes away the napkins and grabs her purse, waving her hand dismissively.

“It’s fine,” she says, even though everything is very much not fine and all she wants to do is go home and cuddle into her stuffed fox, all the while crying and watching _Bend it Like Beckham_. “I’m fine. Just… stop.”

Without a goodbye, far from the polite debutante Sharon Xavier had desired her to be, Raven leaves. She just gets to her car, cursing and mumbling under her breath, when her cell phone begins to ring “Beethoven’s 5th.”

 

 

The sky was blue and clear the day of the memorial, the sun shining through the windows of the auditorium, trapping the heat inside the room until it’s so hot it’s hard to breathe. Even the high ceilings and cracked back doors aren’t enough to help with that. Bucky adjusted his tie around his neck, feeling like the fabric was a noose. Though he didn’t know Erskine as well as Charles, Bucky was still his student, and they’d worked together enough in Hillel. Next to him, Steve shuffles on the balls of his feet, eyes focused intently on Professor Shaw, who’s acting as the memorial speaker. In Bucky’s freshman year, he had Professor Shaw for Intro to the Study of Engineering, and the guy had been a bit strange, one of those professors who tried to relate to his students with words and phrases he thought were “in” but weren’t. How he was chosen as Dean of the Sciences is a mystery to everyone in the major.

Natasha eyes Shaw with her favorite expression—criticism—and says, “He’s going to make this entire thing about him. Just watch.”

Behind Shaw is a PowerPoint slide of pictures of Erskine with his students, most of which were taken by members of the Hillel. There’s a communal camera they keep in one of his desk drawers, and taking pictures became a pastime for some of the more boring meetings. They’re hard to look at, though maybe they shouldn’t be.

Raven frowns and says to Natasha, “That wouldn’t be right. He’s got to be professional about it.”

As Shaw starts talking, rambling about what a great man and professor Erskine was, and how he was a gift to the department, one of the school’s photographers, Peter Parker, jumps about like a manic spider trying to get the best angle for the school paper. Bucky rocks to the side of his feet closer to Raven, ignoring the speech and Parker, and says, “Shaw’s never professional. He’s an arrogant dick. Probably upset that he’s not the cause of the commemoration right now.” Shaw had always seemed to Bucky to be a bit of a supervillain, the kind that wants to twirl a handlebar mustache and cackle evilly to the hero about their grand plan to take over the world. The Lex Luthor type.

Steve frowns and says, “He’s still a professor. He can’t make this about himself. Not today.”

“You’re starting to sound like Hermione about Snape,” Natasha says, and rubs her temple. “Charles isn’t missing anything.”

Earlier, Charles had called them to tell them he was going to be busy and wouldn’t be able to make it. He had sounded terribly upset on the phone and, after missing the funeral, Bucky figures it must be something extremely important for him to miss this as well. Then again, maybe it is better, because otherwise he’d have to listen to this bullshit.

“He still wanted to be here,” Raven answers, wringing her hands around her wrists. “It’s a pretty big deal.”

Before Bucky can say anything, or before anyone else can, either, a girl in the row in front of them turns around with her fingers pressed to her lips. He resists the urge to roll his eyes like a toddler and stick out his tongue, choosing to glare at her instead and gesture for her to turn back around. A few rows ahead of her, he sees the familiar figure of Erik Lehnsherr standing as still as a stone statue, as unmoving as ever. Next to him is Howard Stark, and on the other side of the aisle from them, Mrs. Erskine and her kids. A few people Bucky knows from the Hillel are crying, but for the most part, not many students knew him that well. Professor Anna Jarvis hands over her handkerchief to one of the more upset girls.

The whole school seems to have turned out for the memorial. Half of them had probably never even heard of Professor Erskine before today. Most likely, they had come for the free food that had been promised in the email sent en masse to the entire university. Bucky kind of wants to kick some of them out of the auditorium straight on their asses, but Steve might slap him for being “impolite” or some bullshit like that.

Half an hour later, and the memorial is done. Most of the crowd flocks to the student center for the free food and additional speeches by other faculty, but Bucky follows his friends outside, arm wrapped around Steve’s shoulder. They all stop, though, as they pass the crime scene, and find Lehnsherr standing there, hovering over where the body fell, just staring.

A chill runs through Bucky, and though he knows Lehnsherr could never hurt a mouse, for a moment, it almost looks as though he could.


End file.
